Le Extraño Guarambare

Three months have past in my training community of Guarambare and now it is time to move on to my site for the next two years, but there are lots of things that I will miss about this city. And I would like to take the time for myself and for all of you reading this to know what my favorite things were about Guarambare and my training there.


Heladoria
Located in the center of town, the other trainees and I frequently visited this amazing ice cream shop. And by frequently, my two friends Brenda and Jessica and I would visit anywhere from 4 to 5 days a week. The most amazing part of the ice cream besides the delicious flavors like banana, dulce de leche, coco, chocolate, and granisado, is that it only costs $0.40 for two scoops. Also there is a very cute old man that owns the ice cream shop and we like to call him "Che tua de helado" or "My ice cream papa".





Sunsets
The large open sky of Paraguay provides a stunningly colorful sunset almost every night. No matter how hot or cold the day might have been, the purples and oranges that streak the sky create a breath taking view. While the sunset can be admired from any place in Guarambare, my favorite place to watch the sunset was in front of my house over the sugar cane fields.




Family
I will dearly miss my host family. I was blessed to have had a host family like them for my first three months in Paraguay. By the end of training I felt completely integrated into my family and grateful for their hospitality. Opening their home and their lives for me to experience. I attended weddings, wedding anniversaries, baptisms, first communions, deaths, birthdays and the birth of my host sister Maria Pabla. I have all the intentions of staying in contact with them throughout my service and visiting often, especially when friends and family visit me. By the time I leave, Maria Pabla will be walking and talking! Crazy!





Neighbors
Typychaty es mi barrio. The barrio or neighborhood of Guarambare that I lived in for the past three months is called Typychaty, meaning 'place of many brooms'. And while I never saw more than two or three different brooms during the past three months, I have to say that Typychaty is the best barrio in all of Guarambare and possibly Paraguay. I became good friends with Brenda's host family and will miss them dearly as well. All the laughs that Brenda and I shared with that family will always make me giggle when I am thinking back. I also made great friends with some neighbor girls my age and I can´t wait to go back and visit with them.

Trainees
Now this is when it gets sad. I will deeply miss my new friends. We have spent the last 11 weeks together developing relationships that will bond us together for years after our service. We all experienced the ups and downs of training, host families, and language errors. It feels like the end of summer camp. We all have to part our own ways, but nobody really wants to. We just want it to keep going for the next two years. However, I am excited for all of our adventures that we will encounter here in Paraguay. The best part of training is definitely making friends with other trainees so when we become volunteers we will have someone to complain to about our work, the heat, or Paraguayans, and we will know exactly how eachother is feeling.


I will miss you G-31 Environmental Education!